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Industry Experts Develop First Sustainability Assessment Tools for Spas

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ATLANTA—Spas intent on greening their operations have a new strategic tool to work with as the result of an intensive three-day meeting organized by Green Spa Network (GSN), a trade association devoted to greening the spa industry. The organization’s first Green Spa Congress, held in Atlanta on September 29 to October 1, has developed the GSN Sustainability Assessment Tool—GSN SAT—to assist GSN member spas in their migration to becoming greener businesses.

This is the first tool of its kind developed specifically for the spa industry. During three days of intensive meetings, 24 members of Green Spa Network (GSN) from all parts of the country and throughout the spa industry met to develop the tool.

The team used as a starting point the SCORE model, an innovative benchmarking tool used by cities, organizations and businesses to bring sustainability principles into all aspects of their operations. Darcy Hitchcock, SCORE co-developer, led participants through a series of exercises to identify the best practices on a range of sustainability issues from energy management to community involvement. Industry experts in spa marketing, architecture, design, equipment, human resources, skin care products and operations worked together to generate the spa industry’s first sustainability assessment tool.

Skin/Personal Care Products

A key goal of GSN is to enable spa professionals to choose chemically clean and ethically produced skin/personal care products. One meeting participant gave a comprehensive presentation on the lack of transparency, traceability, and accountability in standards for skin/personal care products in the United States, and the emergence of natural and organic certification programs worldwide. A process for making conscious, informed choices was developed at the Congress as part of the assessment tool.

“I know of no other forum in which a group of spa professionals representing every aspect of the industry have gathered to go beyond talking about sustainability to actually building the tools that we need to get there,” says Michael Stusser, founder of Osmosis Day Spa and GSN board president. “Now we have a way for members to measure themselves and to feed their experiences back into the assessment process. Our attendees were so enthusiastic they asked for another Congress in six months!”

GSN’s Sustainability Assessment Tool is not intended to serve as a certification, but rather as a series of benchmarks and goals with which individual organizations can construct their own unique path to greening. Available in beta, the GSN SAT is now being field-tested by a group of participating spas.

Go to the Green Spa Network.

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